R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny earns his first FREC pole at Hungaroring

Photo: ACI Sport

R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny earned his maiden Formula Regional European Championship pole in qualifying for race two at the Hungaroring.

Before the session news came through of changes to race one’s results. Parc ferme violations meant Akcel GP’s Aditya Kulkarni and Javier Sagrera were disqualified, and Sainteloc Racing’s Nikita Bedrin lost 10th place to a five-second penalty for an incident with Prema’s Jack Beeton then was disqualified for not having the required amount of oil in the gearbox for a post-race sample.

Group B headed out on track first in qualifying, with Race Performance Motorsport’s Giovanni Maschio fastest at first.

Trident’s Matteo De Palo was next to the top with a 1m48.662s, which Prema’s Rashid Al Dhaheri then beat with a 1m48.289s.

De Palo responded with a 1m41.849s, then Al Dhaheri’s next effort was a 1m40.474s and he led team-mate Doriane Pin by 0.325 seconds. Again, De Palo responded by lowering the benchmark, to 1m38.922s. Trident’s Ruiqi Liu moved up to second, but almost a second behind, before ART Grand Prix’s Kanato Le got within 0.473s of De Palo.

Al Dhaheri took back top spot with a 1m38.767s, and De Palo did not improve on his next lap. He reclaimed first place with three minutes remaining by posting a 1m38.354s, which Le lapped 0.104s shy of.

The battle to be fastest continued, as Al Dhaheri lowered the pace to 1m38.019s and the top 12 all improved. De Palo’s next lap came in after the chequered flag, and a 1m37.839s put him ahead by 0.018s. But with a session-best sector three Al Dhaheri was able to snatch back top spot by 0.058s.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Dion Gowda and ART GP’s Evan Giltaire went fourth and fifth fastest after the finish.

Prema’s Freddie Slater was first to the top in group A, and almost seven minutes in to the 15-minute session Bedrin moved ahead with a 1m42.166s.

His team-mate Maya Weug was first to lap sub-1m40s, then Trident’s Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi set a 1m38.685s. ART GP’s Taito Kato beat that by 0.355s, before VAR’s Pedro Clerot went 0.055s up on him.

Slater was down in 10th until with five-and-a-half minutes remaining he jumped up to second place, 0.135s off Deligny’s benchmark 1m37.896s. Bhirombhakdi had his best lap deleted due to track limits abuse so dropped to 15th.

Kato got within 0.09s of Deligny with three minutes to go, just before Bhirombhakdi went quickest with a 1m38.223s.

Clerot was next to the top, and his 1m37.649s guaranteed pole went went to group A. Deligny reclaimed first place with two minutes remaining, setting a 1m37.296s which put him 0.146s ahead of Slater and 0.211s clear of R-ace’s Akshay Bohra.

Belov, Clerot and Bhirombhakdi improved in fourth, fifth and sixth after the chequered flag waved, with Belov matching Bohra’s pace but starting behind due to his lap coming later.

Deligny set new benchmarks in sectors one and two on his final lap but was too slow after that to improve his best laptime.

Qualifying results